VATICAN CITY — The Vatican raised the possibility yesterday that the conclave to elect the next
pope might start sooner than March 15, the earliest date possible under current rules that require
a 15- to 20-day waiting period after the papacy becomes vacant.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said that Vatican rules on papal succession are
open to interpretation and that “this is a question that people are discussing.”

The waiting period is in place to allow time for all cardinals who don’t live in Rome to arrive,
under the usual circumstance of a pope dying. But in this case, the cardinals already know that
this pontificate will end Feb. 28, with the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, and therefore can get
to Rome in plenty of time to take part in the conclave, Lombardi said.

The date of the conclave’s start is important because Holy Week begins on March 24, with Palm
Sunday Mass followed by Easter Sunday on March 31. In order to have a new pope in place in time for
the most solemn liturgical period on the church calendar, he would need to be installed by March 17
because of the strong tradition to hold installation Mass on a Sunday.

Questions about the start of the conclave have swirled since Benedict stunned the world on Feb.
11 by announcing that he would retire, the first pontiff in 600 years to abdicate rather than stay
in office until death.“In this moment we are not prepared,” said Cardinal Franc Rode, the former
head of the Vatican’s office for religious orders who will vote in the conclave. “We have not been
able to make predictions, strategies, plans, candidates. It is too early, but we will get there. In
two or three weeks, things will be put in place.”

Meanwhile yesterday, journalist Peter Seewald said in an article for the German weekly
Focus that the pontiff had told him that his strength was diminishing and “not much more”
could be expected from him as pope.

“I am an old man, and my strength is running out,” Seewald quoted the pope as saying. “And I
think what I have done is enough.”